On 9 October 2023, two days after Operation Al Aqsa Flood, our comrade Sarah made a speech on behalf of the Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Society at SOAS University in which she cited the Palestinian people’s internationally recognised legal right to armed resistance against oppression. Following a sustained campaign by online Zionists and the lawfare-mongering UK Lawyers for Israel, she was arrested in January 2024 and charged in March 2025 with two terrorism offences which are punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.
A trial in June 2026 culminated in a mixed verdict, with an acquittal on one charge and a hung jury on the other. The Crown Prosecution Service then vindictively insisted on retrying Sarah on this count. On 18 September that too resulted in a Not Guilty finding. Once again, while the British state continues to support the genocidal Zionist war machine, the ordinary people of the jury easily understood that, as we say on our protests: ‘Defending Palestine is not a crime!’
As soon as Sarah was charged, and at the point that another comrade was arrested on identical charges (although not ultimately prosecuted), the Revolutionary Communist Group set up the Defend SOAS 2 campaign. Drawing on decades of experience of fighting against state repression, stretching back to the South African anti-apartheid and Irish national liberation struggles, we held public rallies and protested at every court appearance, unintimidated by the constant petty harassment from the police outside the court, always with an open mic on which all supportive individuals and organisations were invited to contribute. We also ensured that Sarah had an excellent legal team who were sympathetic to our insistence that the case would be fought politically.
Throughout the campaign, Sarah and other comrades consistently attended and spoke at the court protests, support rallies and public meetings for many other criminalised activists, demonstrating in action that we stand united in the face of criminalisation of our solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. We emphasised throughout that we demand not only justice for all these individuals but the scrapping of Britain’s oppressive anti-terrorism apparatus in its entirety.
For the duration of the retrial, as during the first trial, we protested every day outside the court. FRFI supporters from Brighton, Nottingham, Birmingham, Blackburn, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle travelled to London to join the protests, and members of many other supportive organisations joined us on the pavement to voice their solidarity.
The case against Sarah was farcical. The court was played a video of her speech and treated to several hours’ worth of evidence from messages downloaded from her phone, all designed to prove that, although she never mentioned Hamas or any other group in her speech, this was just some elaborate subterfuge to cover up her actual support for this specific proscribed organisation. No deed or action was on trial here – this was an Orwellian attempt to prosecute thought crime.
Having heard the ‘evidence’ and listened to Sarah’s staunch political defence, the jury was out for less than two hours before returning with a Not Guilty verdict. The street outside the court erupted as protesters celebrated the victory.
Sarah told the crowd outside court:
‘We spent two years campaigning, two years defending ourselves, two years having to come to these court protests time and time again, two trials here at the Old Bailey. We’ve never once stopped defending what we believe in. We won using our own politics, sticking to what we believe in, that we support the Palestinian people. No matter how hard they try, no matter how many police officers they send to these protests to try to intimidate us, we will be victorious. Because the people united will never be defeated.’
